Chapter 9

St. Petersburg, Russia

Anya sat in her dungeon. Ivan stood outside the door so he could check on her. “Hello little sister, how are you doing?”

“About as well as could be considering the circumstances, and don’t ‘little sister’ me. I may be your half-sister by blood, but not by any other measure. If you truly considered me a sibling, you’d let me out of here.”

“I can’t do that. Rgal would have me killed.”

“Then consider yourself dead one way or another. WHEN I get out of here, you’ll die a worse death than anything he could devise. I promise you that.”

“It’s not my fault. He forces me do these things.”

Anya lay down on her bed and tuned Ivan’s weak excuses out. Her escape plan was complete and she just needed to wait until the conditions were right. The guards were beginning to get sloppy now that the focus was on those two Americans. ‘I wonder what is so special about them? After all, they let Tara travel by herself which was unheard of until recently. They must be getting desperate,’ she thought to herself.

Aeden abruptly stopped moving and pulled away from Tara. “Stop frakking with my head. Aliens don’t exist.”

“Well, Saug certainly doesn’t think that way. He’s the reason you’re even here in the first place. If his forces hadn’t chased your father halfway across the galaxy, you wouldn’t exist!”

Talking about his father triggered Aeden. “You know nothing about my father!”

“He was the first in line to rule Alnilam and even married a non-human. How pathetic can you be?”

Pavlina sensed Aeden’s distraught state from across the club and began looking for him. Once again she tried to ‘tune in’ to him and again, she ran into interference. Tara looked past Aeden and saw her coming right for them. “Your future wife is headed this way. If you as much as say anything, your sister will die tonight. Don’t try your telepathy crap, either. I have you blocked.”

Pavlina cautiously approached the two as she used all the powers at her disposal to establish a connection. She knew something wasn’t right, but had no idea as to what. “Aeden, honey? Is everything alright?” she asked as she gently stroked his arm. The body contact was intentional to see if she could overcome the interference.

“Yes, it is. Tara here was just telling me some things about her childhood. She’s lived a hard life.”

“You guys seem to be finished dancing so, why don’t we have one last dance?”

Aeden looked nervously at Tara and then back to Pavlina. “I’ll be right there.”

“OK, dear,” Pavlina said as she reluctantly walked away. Veronika was all she could think of as she left, which confused her. She stopped short and turned around, “I’ve got to go to the loo. I’ll be right back.”

Aeden turned to Tara, “What is it you want?”

Tara nervously looked around and suddenly pulled Aeden in for a kiss. They both shared the same jolting electrical sensation that he had felt with Pavlina. In surprise, he pushed her away.

“What was that all about?”

“I don’t know, I just felt the urge. Anyways, meet me at Královská obora Stromovka tomorrow night at midnight and I’ll have proof about everything. Come alone.”

“Everything?”

“Yes. Where your father is and what he did. Things no one here would want you to know.”

Pavlina stepped outside the dance club and called Veronika who answered on the 3rd ring. “What’s up future sis-in-law?”

Pavlina smiled at how comfortable Veronika seemed with the idea. “Not much, but listen carefully. Something odd just happened and I felt like I needed to call you. Call it a premonition or whatever, but I want you to keep an eye out for trouble tonight. I have a bad feeling something bad might happen around you tonight.”

Veronika was silent for a moment as she thought about Pavlina’s information. Her life had been filled with similar occurrences, so she didn’t immediately reject the warning. “Do you have any specifics?”

“No. Only that you might be in danger. That’s all I can say at this moment, anything more would be speculation.”

“OK. I’ll take that under advisement ... and thank you for the warning.”

Pavlina was somewhat surprised at how easily Veronika accepted the news. “Thank you for taking this seriously. I can go into more detail when we meet.”

“If big-bro trusts you enough for marriage, then I know you have to be someone special. I’ll keep my friends nearby and my eyes open. Unlike big bro, I didn’t stop taking self defense classes.”

The two exchanged a few more pleasantries and hung up. Relieved, Pavlina went back into the club to collect Aeden and Marketa so they could head home.

Helsinki, Finland

The night club scene in Helsinki was great. The girls from the US Women’s national team were looking forward to unwinding on the dance floor after over a week of playing exhibition matches to prepare for the upcoming Olympics in Athens. In a sign of unity, the whole team went out together, but broke up into multiple groups at the club.

Veronika had been bouncing from group to group trying to be sociable with everyone. It probably helped that her best friends were scattered across the two groups. She had known Lena the longest, having played against her in many local West Texas tournaments in high school and club volleyball. Her shoulder-length hair was a reddish color. She had blue eyes, and was 5’10”. She grew up in the West Texas town of Pecos, so they shared regional sensibilities. Lena was a bit more country than the other girls, too. Her southern drawl, and laid-back attitude was very complementary to Veronika’s temperament. She was a frequent guest at Veronika’s New Mexico ranch to ride horses and rip up the desert terrain on dirt bikes. Aeden sometimes referred to them as ‘The Twins’ because of the similarity in their likes and dislikes. They were the stereotypical tomboy type during the day, but became a combination of the sexy little sister and girl next door at night.

Babette was almost the polar opposite. She was from deep south Louisiana and had a Cajun accent so thick, it was sometimes hard to understand what she was saying. She talked as fast as she played which wasn’t nearly as fast as she went through guys. “They’s just so lame...” was her typical reaction. At 5’10” with jet-black hair down to her mid-back, Babette was the team’s best setter and ran a tight ship. She had no qualms about getting up into someone’s ‘grill’ and letting them have it if she felt it was needed. Two minutes later, she would be their best friend again. Behind that gruff exterior was a tender heart and loyal friend. She also had a thing for Aeden, but it was innocent. He rarely ever did any wrong in her eyes and was constantly defending him to anyone who would listen.

Heather came from Wisconsin and was a typical naive, ‘small town’ type of girl. This was the first year on the team for the 6’3” strawberry-blonde middle blocker. Everywhere they went outside the US was a completely new experience for Heather, who rarely ventured outside the upper midwest. She had been to a lot of airports and college campuses around the country, but hadn’t experienced much life outside of the block where she grew up. The University of Wisconsin where she went to school was not far from her home so it was as if she never left home during her collegiate years.